Wednesday Morning Pre-Market News (11/16/11)

Every morning the Street of Walls team puts out an update on market levels, today’s top stories, and active M&A deals.

Today’s Top Stories:

Bank of England Cuts GDP: The BoE also sharply revised down its near-term growth forecasts, and now sees a strong chance that annual growth rates will be below 1 percent throughout 2012 http://bit.ly/rPjxsj

BP Paribas Drops the Hammer: Sources are reporting that BNP Paribas is planning on laying off 5% of its 12,000 employeeshttp://bit.ly/rHBDQM

Greece Update: new government is expected to easily pass a confidence vote on Wed

Citi Job Cuts: the co is planning to cut ~900 jobs in its securities and banking division and may cut more than 3K overall (FT)

Biglari speaks out to CBRl: Once again, Sadar Biglari sends a letter to shareholders regarding the activist position he has built in Cracker Barrel Old Country Store (Nasdaq:CBRL) http://bit.ly/rMVQju

Steve Jobs wanted to replace phone carriers: Jobs apparently spent the better part of two years leading up to the release of the company’s first iPhone trying to figure out how to turn Wi-Fi spectrum into a network that users could make phone calls on, as opposed to relying on carriers to get the job done http://cnet.co/uqB3KA

BAC Update: board is holding a three-day strategy session this week and Moynihan is

expected to declare the company as being on the right track (WSJ)

UBS Update: the company will hold an analyst meeting Thurs morning and lay out a new strategy (FT)

Postal Service Losses: the USPS is said to be in talks w/advisors to discuss restructuring options (BBG)

CS on European Economics: “The euro area continues to lurch unsteadily towards fiscal union and into recession. We think the uncertainty and financial volatility, ongoing since the end of June, have not been resolved rapidly or effectively enough to prevent recession. For the real economy the main pressure has come through the banking sector where there has been a sharp rise in banks’ marginal funding costs, in turn leading to tighter lending standards. We now look for euro area GDP to contract by 0.5% in 2012 and rise by 1.7% in 2013” (Credit Suisse Research)

Online group-buying M&A: Since 2009 there has been 72 acquisitions in this space with 44 in 2Q11 & 3Q1Every morning the Street of Wallsteam puts out an update on market levels, today’s top stories, and active M&A deals.Today’s Top Stories:

Bank of England Cuts GDP: The BoE also sharply revised down its near-term growth forecasts, and now sees a strong chance that annual growth rates will be below 1 percent throughout 2012http://bit.ly/rPjxsj

BP Paribas Drops the Hammer: Sources are reporting that BNP Paribas is planning on laying off 5% of its 12,000 employeeshttp://bit.ly/rHBDQM

Greece Update: new government is expected to easily pass a confidence vote on Wed

Citi Job Cuts: the co is planning to cut ~900 jobs in its securities and banking division and may cut more than 3K overall (FT)

Biglari speaks out to CBRl: Once again, Sadar Biglari sends a letter to shareholders regarding the activist position he has built in Cracker Barrel Old Country Store (Nasdaq:CBRL)http://bit.ly/rMVQju

Steve Jobs wanted to replace phone carriers: Jobs apparently spent the better part of two years leading up to the release of the company’s first iPhone trying to figure out how to turn Wi-Fi spectrum into a network that users could make phone calls on, as opposed to relying on carriers to get the job donehttp://cnet.co/uqB3KA

BAC Update: board is holding a three-day strategy session this week and Moynihan is

expected to declare the company as being on the right track (WSJ)

UBS Update: the company will hold an analyst meeting Thurs morning and lay out a new strategy (FT)

Postal Service Losses: the USPS is said to be in talks w/advisors to discuss restructuring options (BBG)

CS on European Economics: “The euro area continues to lurch unsteadily towards fiscal union and into recession. We think the uncertainty and financial volatility, ongoing since the end of June, have not been resolved rapidly or effectively enough to prevent recession. For the real economy the main pressure has come through the banking sector where there has been a sharp rise in banks’ marginal funding costs, in turn leading to tighter lending standards. We now look for euro area GDP to contract by 0.5% in 2012 and rise by 1.7% in 2013” (Credit Suisse Research)

Online group-buying M&A: Since 2009 there has been 72 acquisitions in this space with 44 in 2Q11 & 3Q1. Based on these implied precedent transactions this implies the valuations of Group are significantly below recent IPO valuations http://bit.ly/syY9BO

Disclosure: I do not have a position in any stocks mentioned in this article, do not have a plan to initiate a position within the next 72 hours.

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